


Making the Choice

by Penelope_S



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Daeron's been mourning Lúthien's disappearance for ages, Gen, I decided that he needs to do something more constructive with his life, Storytelling, deus ex machina-ed culture in an unspecified part of southeastern ME
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28416669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penelope_S/pseuds/Penelope_S
Summary: In the midst of a desert, a wanderer comes across a journeyer whose face is hauntingly familiar, though they have never met.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Making the Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArlenianChronicles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArlenianChronicles/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a TSS gift for ArlenianChronicles, but both my computer and my phone decided that the true spirit of Christmas is to give up the ghost without syncing any documents/notes/photos/etc., so I hereby present a rewritten from memory and hastily proofread version of this story typed up on a borrowed computer. Apologies for the wait- just think of it as an early Epiphany gift!

The burning wind flings bits of the shallow ridges they shelter between at their exposed hands and watering eyes, but the journeyer and the wanderer are used to this. Through long treks in these vast deserts and grasslands, they have become intimately acquainted with the dusty grit driven by harsh rip tides of air and pay it little heed. They stand in the face of the earth and sky’s joint scornful lashing and stare at one another in shock, for they are also acquainted with each other’s features, though they have never met before.

“Well met,” says the journeyer to the wanderer. “How come you to this deserted place? None of your people have walked this land before you.”

“I would ask you the same question, mortal, if I were not more astounded by your resemblance to one whom I once knew. I had thought her likeness fled this Middle Earth, but now I behold her once more in your spirit and features.” He speaks slowly, as if unused to any sense of time, a dusty vessel of the spirit of the desert rock itself. “I do not love your race, yet if only for this, I am glad to have met you.”

“And I, you. Would you tell me of this lady? I confess my curiosity aroused by your mention of one to whom I bear a resemblance, whom you hold in such high regard.”

“I have sung the tragedy of Lúthien Tinúviel, fairest of Ilúvatar’s Children, to waters and winds for years past count; I would delight in a living audience once more, even if you are not of my people.”

“I am the guest of a household a few miles distant. Will you consent to accompanying me back for the night and telling the tale to them as well?”

The wanderer stills in thought; the gusts whip dark hair across his carven countenance. “For the sight of her in your face, yes, this once will I sing for a family of Men, though I still bear a hurt dealt by them long ago, so long that no history of your race remembers it, but so great even now that I marvel at the nightingales’ continued singing and the cactus flowers’ continued blooming. We will walk to your household, and I will tell the tale of days past, when the world was more beautiful and Men had just come into being.”

“I thank you,” smiles the journeyer. “Allow me to lead you there.”

During their walk through the miniature valleys winding beneath rocky ridges and occasional climbs over sloping walls or around patches of cacti that block their direction too directly, the two speak no more, not even their names, for the journeyer already knows his companion’s name and has no desire to share his own, and the wanderer does not think to offer.

The family welcomes their guest and his new acquaintance to a dinner held in a baked earth courtyard as the sun sinks towards the rust red hills in the west, tossing golden light over shimmering maize fields and illumined dancing dust motes.

The elf gestures with his tortilla at the green stalks cupped in the shallow dips of land as if Ilúvatar had reached down and scooped away handfuls of dirt. “I hear the music of the river beneath us, but how do you draw the water up to the roots of the crops?”

The mother answers him with firm graciousness, the last of the evening’s sunlight sparkling across her brown cheeks and eyes. “We cannot tell you. All are welcome in our house, but we do not disclose our secrets to those we do not trust not to wrest our land from us for their own benefit. Our people are the only ones who know how to live here, and that is our protection.”

The wanderer nods with slight annoyance, but her reticence does not dissuade him from settling in the center of the single interior room after the meal has been completed to begin his tale.

“Ere the Sun and Moon were fashioned, the stars of Elbereth shone alone in the sky, and the elves were the only Children of Ilúvatar yet awakened upon the earth. In those days, Elwë, lord of the Teleri, was leading his people along the road west, and, happening to walk by himself for a time, he heard in the wood of Nan Elmoth the song of nightingales, and a strong enchantment fell on him that stayed his feet. The voice of Melian the Maia came to him, singing through the starlit trees…” Images of trees and starlight take shape before their eyes, conjured by his voice.

Five nights he sits in the middle of the room, and each night he chants further the story of Lúthien Tinúviel, the joy of her life and the grief of her loss.

“Long we sought for her in vain, but she was lost, and we do not know her end. So passed Lúthien the beloved, daughter of Melian and Elu Thingol. Twice I have felt the shape of the world change, and still I wander, lamenting the day Eä lost its brightest light,” he ends on the fifth evening. His head is bowed in sorrow, silver moonlight reflecting in his dark hair. The family sits silent in respect for his grief.

But the first guest stirs. “You had no news of her after she fled Hírilorn?”

“No, though I myself left the Girdle to search the wild lands, and many others with me.”

“Then you have not heard the last of the story. Lúthien was not lost, though she no longer dwells in Arda. I beg you, let me finish your tale, for it does not end in tragedy for Lúthien, despite her death. Her soul rests now beyond the Circles of Eä.”

The wanderer seems caught in similar enchantment to Melian and Thingol, though it is of shock and not love. “How can this be? The queen told us that the spirits of the Firstborn are called by Námo to the Halls of Mandos when they flee our bodies, not beyond the world.”

“She alone of all the Eldalië has died indeed, and the tale of her Choice is still recounted among my people. Allow me to finish her story.”

“Tomorrow,” the mother interrupts, “you may tell us the end. The moon is high now. It is time to pray and sleep.” The parents hurry disappointed children to unrolled sleeping mats as the wanderer leans towards the first guest.

“You showed no recognition at the beginning of my song, yet you know its completion?” he whispers in the faintly moonlit interior of the adobe house.

“I have heard the remainder of her life times beyond count— that is what my people remember. Her time as an elfmaiden is not as of high interest to us as her Choice. The Choice still awes us, more than her beauty,” he smiles slightly, “though that is said to have been fairer than mortal tongue can tell, so we cannot do it justice.”

“If this choice of which you speak was her love for the mortal, I, too, continue to be in awe and dismay at her foolish decision. I love her, but, even after the passing of so many long years, I cannot understand her infatuation.”

“Nay, that is not the Choice to which I refer, only its cause. I will tell you tomorrow. Our hostess says it is time for prayer and sleep, and she is wise.”

The next evening, the journeyer sits in the center of the room, and the setting sun reveals nobility and grace in his weathered features.

“Within her treehouse in Hírilorn,” he says, “Lúthien put forth her arts of enchantment and caused her hair to grow to great length, and of it she wove a dark robe that wrapped her beauty like a shadow, and it was laden with a spell of sleep.”

For two nights the first guest continues the tale, and though his words are accompanied by no visions of the Elder days before their eyes, some strange power in his voice shapes in their minds scenes more clearly drawn than the wanderer’s previous images, for he relates the joy and grief of all involved with sincere empathy.

He finishes, “Thus Dior knew that his parents, Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren Erchamion, who partook in greater joy and greater anguish than any other of Eru’s Children on earth, had passed through the Halls of Mandos once more and beyond the Circles of the World. They will not be seen again until it is broken and remade, and their line will not fail until that time.”

The family and guests sit in that silent fulfillment after the completion of a story that has both emptied and filled the heart, until one of the children asks, “‘Does that mean that their descendents are still alive today?”

“Yes,” smiles the journeyer, “some chose to be accounted among the elves, and others among Men, but in both kindreds the line continues on unbroken. The relatives and descendents of Beren and Lúthien guard the western lands of Middle Earth against Sauron to this day.”

“I am amazed,” says the wanderer. “For thousands of seasons I have made lament for Lúthien, and yet her fate was not what I thought. Nevertheless, she is dead indeed, by such a Choice as I never foresaw, and so my sorrow has not been in vain.”

“She is grieved for still, but by her Choice she and Beren joined the Ainur, the Firstborn, and the Secondborn into one strain, and the offspring of their blood have done many good things in this world, even within the shortness of some of their lives.”

“But can that good ever repay the loss of Lúthien Tinúviel?”

The first guest thinks, and says slowly, “I do not think it is a question of repayment. We, the world, are not owed Lúthien’s continued life in this plane if Eru saw fit to allow her to choose the Gift to Men. A mortal’s life and an immortal’s life walk different paths, but I do not believe one to be inherently better than the other. She chose the Gift and accepted it willingly when the time came, and I judge that we should not begrudge her that. She had great courage, and I, for my part, honor her for it. She has achieved a different good than she might have if she had continued as an elf, but it is good all the same.”

The elf shakes his head, “I must ponder your words ere I make any reply. I have not thought upon that view before this moment.”

“I would not ask differently, my friend.”

The following days are filled with silence from the wanderer, though the family and first guest sing at intervals as ever while weeding the fields, kneading tortilla dough, and the never ending other tasks that comprise life on a desert farm. Three days later, the elf approaches the other guest.

“I apologize, but I must think on these things for some time. If we meet again before your death, I will share my conclusions with you.”

“I cannot fault you for that. I, too, hope that we shall meet once more. I am glad to have heard your story.”

“I am glad to have heard its end.”

The journeyer leaves the next morning when Arien’s coming is but a murmur in the birds’ dawn chorus and bats’ fluttering back to cactus hollows. He was a considerate guest, as guests go, the family agrees, and curiously skilled at shaping tortillas for a stranger. They extend an open invitation, and he thanks them, grey eyes bright with joy. He has many tasks to complete in the north and west of Middle Earth, he tells them, but he will always be grateful for their superior hospitality and will stay with them again if he passes this way.

When asked, the wanderer confesses that he would prefer to remain with the family for a time, in hopes that learning more about the race of Men will aid him in understanding Lúthien’s Choice. As long as he abides by their rules and joins in the work, the family assures him, he is always welcome.

  
_ “Upon Doriath evil days had fallen. Grief and silence had come upon all its people when Lúthien was lost. Long they had sought for her in vain. And it is told that in that time Daeron the minstrel of Thingol strayed from the land, and was seen no more. He it was that made music for the dance and song of Lúthien, before Beren came to Doriath; and he had loved her, and set all his thought of her in his music. He became the greatest of all the minstrels of the Elves east of the Sea, named even before Maglor son of Fëanor. But seeking for Lúthien in despair he wandered upon strange paths, and passing over the mountains he came into the East of Middle-earth, where for many ages he made lament beside dark waters for Lúthien, daughter of Thingol, most beautiful of all living things.” _ - _The Silmarillion_

_ “I have had a hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhûn and Harad where the stars are strange.” _ - _The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring_

_ “...he passed out of knowledge of Men of the West, and went alone far into the East and deep into the South, exploring the hearts of Men, both evil and good, and uncovering the plots and devices of the servants of Sauron."  _ - _The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King (appendices)_

**Author's Note:**

> The storytelling sections are either heavily inspired by or lifted straight from the Silm (except for the bits where Daeron is an unreliable narrator) because I wanted to keep that as close to canon as possible. The geography (such as the underground river in the desert) and the culture of the family is based upon the stories one of my elderly relatives told me about their life growing up on a ranch irrigated by an underground river. If you're wondering how Daeron can speak the same language as the family, the answer is a headcanon that the Music of the Ainur in the earth can be modified by the languages of the Children who influence/shape that portion of the earth, so the desert rocks are now fluent in the family's tongue and taught Daeron (the idea came from the stones of Hollin in lotr). Is this solely because I didn't want to deal with Aragorn translating everything? Yes, yes it is.  
> Let me know if there are any mistakes- as I said before, this was proofread very quickly, so there are probably quite a few typos, etc., but it takes me forever to write anything, so I wanted to get this first chapter out now and I'll revise it later. The second chapter should be up within 48 hours, technology permitting.


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